Note 20 — Chapter XIII

The following extract, from a related account of a conscript, translated from the French and published by Murray, is so true and exact as to need no comment:—“Through the smoke I saw the English gunners abandon their pieces, all but six guns stationed under the road, and almost immediately our cuirassiers were upon the squares, whose fire was drawn in zig-zags. Now, I thought, those gunners would be cut to pieces; but no, the devils kept firing with grape, which mowed them down like grass.” It is pleasant, after all, to find we were observed and spoken of as we deserved, though not by those who ought to have done it. I may here mention that Sir James Shaw Kennedy in his book is, I think, mistaken in saying that the Brunswickers were saved by Major Bull’s and Captain Mercer’s batteries, since after the usual interval on the right of the Brunswick square occurred one of English and then Major Bull’s battery, and the front of the French attacking column was only equal to our own.